Venting thinking about him

[heisenberg]

sorry if this vent sounds stupid, or contradictory at the very least. i'm sorry if this is just another stupid "i miss my ex boyfriend" thread but i just haven't been able to sleep and i have no one to talk to this about.

this is going to be extremely long and i don't care if anyone even reads it i just need this weight off my chest

trigger warning for grooming below
.
disclaimer that i do take responsibility for my poor choices in all of this. i was fully aware of what was happening to me, and what my choices meant. i was aware of the full weight of everything and thought for myself fully. i was, and am mentally ill and craved the validation too much to care. i blame the outcome on myself mostly , even though maybe i shouldn't. lastly, i don't condone anything i did, as it literally left me traumatized.

my ex boyfriend and i met in 2020. i don't even know if it's even right to call him that tho, he never referred to me as his girlfriend and i was kept hidden. most people didn't even know he had a girlfriend. i was 16 when we talked for the very first time, he was 24. we met on a video game on xbox out of all things, overwatch specifically. him and i kept spamming the character voice line "yes". that was it, he added me after the game and we talked on xbox briefly before moving to discord. he told me his age from the start. we talked innocently at first, and after a month or two, he stopped talking to me. but damn, i couldn't forget his face. something about him made me want him so bad. against all my best wishes, despite him literally ghosting me, i reached back out to him a couple months later in late fall of 2020. after that, my affinity for him only grew. i broke up with my boyfriend at the time i was dating in high school after i realized i caught feelings for someone else, we'll call him T. in the months T and i didn't talk, he explained to me he was depressed and didn't talk to anyone, and deleted all of his discord chats. we moved onto talking on instagram. during these months, he'd forgotten how old i was. i lied and told him i was 18 now (i was 17 at this point). after we moved onto talking on instagram, we spoke nonstop. he was so kind to me, and so loving. i felt like for the first time in my life, i was accepting the love i thought i deserved. he made me feel so special and i never wanted to be with anyone more. despite him being so loving, we never told each other "i love you." it was always "i adore you." we talked constantly. as the next couple months passed, i found myself unable to sleep, think, or do just about anything without thinking about him. you see, as time passed, he'd get mad at me if i didn't answer him fast enough as he assumed i was cheating on him. i found myself having anxiety attacks when trying to take a nap, out of fear he'd break up with me if i took too long to respond. he'd get upset if i played xbox with anyone that wasn't him, and was upset if i mentioned anyone else. i was finally the only person he wanted, but at what cost? he talked more and more about wanting to meet me and having me all to hisself.

the day came i finally told him the truth, i was 17, not 18. i don't remember the circumstances leading to the conversation, i want to say that i just told T i had something to tell him. i remember sending a huge paragraph to him about it, begging him that i wanted this to work. i remember saying in that paragraph, "the age of consent in massachusetts is 16. please." maybe to no ones surpise but my own, we continued to date.

my anxiety attacks continued and i talked to only him. i didn't do my homework and instead went to get on my xbox every night until 2AM. i was failing my classes because i wasn't doing homework, and could barely stay awake in class. i remember T sending me a message, one time, it said "you in class? let me rail you."

i didn't care about anything but him until the reality of failing my classes caught my parents attention. it now the last half of my senior year, and i was failing almost everything. i was forced to drop my AP and honors classes at the start of the second semester. i was still in disbelief until my guidance counselor told me i wouldn't graduate unless i made it up now. my parents were already disappointed in me enough so i decided to make up what work i could. every night i stayed up until 2AM, doing homework instead of playing xbox, was met with T saying i was cheating on him and that i was talking to someone else. by the time the school year was about to end, i made it to graduation and senior prom.

only, i didnt go to my graduation. i didn't go to senior prom. i knew he would be mad at me if i went, so i didn't. on what was supposed to be my graduation, i got sushi from the grocery store and ate it with my parents at home instead. he still got mad at me cause i didn't get on xbox earlier that day.

during this time as well, i coped with my feelings (and quarantine) by binge eating. i hated myself and stopped getting on the scale after i reached 200lbs. i stopped looking in the mirror.

it was now july of 2021, and T messaged me on instagram that he wanted to talk. he was breaking up with me. it truly felt like someone had reached through my chest and ripped my heart out. words cannot describe the pain i felt. i told him i understood but made one last attempt to get him to stay. i asked if he could get on xbox so i could tell him something. i never told him what, but i wanted to tell him "i love you" at this point we still never told each other those words. but this time, he was the one who didn't want to get on, he said that he couldn't. i never got to tell him. that night i spent sobbing to my online friends, i contemplated drinking bleach or doing something, anything to ctb. i was in so much pain. my friends ended up talking me down and i cried myself to sleep instead.

we didn't talk again until late 2021(?? iirc) when he reached out to me and texted me, "hey , i hope you're doing well." stupid me, i answered him of course. i spent the last months thinking about him nonstop. him and i started talking again as if nothing happened.

throughout our time dating and talking (again) T had a twitter account. i didn't have one and didn't care to have one. until i made one and saw the tweets he made about me after we broke up. he never made a single tweet about me while we were together, it wasn't until we broke up, he made several tweets to his followers about how it was my fault and i'm a bad person. at this time too, i also found the tweets he made about his new girlfriend.

since we had been talking, and sexting, i told him i knew i was the other woman now. he told me, "it was foolish of him not to say anything and that him and his girlfriend were on and off." i told him i don't think i could ever hate him, even after everything, i told him i still thought he was a good person. this was mid 2022.

queue, we stopped talking again after that conversation until march 2024 now. the usual, "hey i hope life has been treating you well." stupid me, again. i had a panic attack when i saw his name on my phone. i cried, i screamed. but stupid, stupid me, i answered it. i told him i have a boyfriend now and he told me "that's now what he's here for" i asked him why he still has my number, until i responded to myself and told him i never deleted our conversation either. this time, him and i spoke and acknowledged, only partly though , what happened. finally admitting we were no good for each other. we spoke innocently as he asked me about my life and wanted me to download this game we used to play. we spoke until july 2024 when i stopped responding and he stopped reaching out again. now here i am, writing this thread.

i feel so embarrassed talking about this to anyone irl. our relationship was purely online and we never met in person. yet i keep thinking to myself that it wouldn't have hurt this bad if we did meet in person. i cry thinking about him often, like right now. i think about flying or driving to where he lives. i don't even know what id want to say to him. i am so hurt because of him. but when i think of him, he's all i want. it's been almost 4 years since we broke up. why do i still care? why does he still care? i know realistically and logically he's a bad person but i can't help but smile when i think of when we first met. and id be lying if i said i wouldn't answer him again if he texts me again. he's just a part of me i can't let go.

and yes, i recognize i'm not a good person or partner to my boyfriend for responding to T when he texted me last year. i shouldn't have answered in the first place.

i don't even know what closure i need to get over this. i was diagnosed with bpd after we broke up, he was my first favorite person. i truly don't think i could ever hate him.

even if i met him irl, i would have no idea where to even start.

 

[steppenwolf]

It's hormones. It never stops, but you get used to it, that is to say you learn to differentiate between what your hormones are telling you is real, and what reality is telling you is real.

For example, when I was 16 in the days before the Tinterwebs, there was a girl sat in front of me at school, and for the next two years we'd sometimes aggressively flirt with each other during lessons, until I privately drove myself to distraction with the idea that we might at any moment run off together on the adventure of our young lives. But then I would have felt the same way about almost any girl who happened to be sat in front of me in class. Hormones. And really I was just an unruly precocious schoolboy with an overactive imagination, and she was just a snide spotty schoolgirl with no imagination, and she would never have absconded from school with or without me for even a single lunchtime. I never told her how I felt, because I knew it wasn't real. When we left school at the age of 17 or 18, I even signed her autograph book with: 'Not much space to write all of the wonderful things we've been through together... like nothing.' Reality. Nonetheless that night I got very drunk and privately contemplated suicide with the realization that childhood was all over and there would never be young love or a childhood sweetheart in my life. Hormones. I never saw the girl again, except for once some twenty or twenty-five years later, when I was sat on a bus and saw her randomly get on, preceded by her three or five noisy blonde children. She was now the size of a house and looked like she could have given birth to a five-year-old boy in a cowboy costume standing up, but it was still definitely her. She looked directly at me with glazed eyes, chewing gum with her mouth open, completely shameless, and the horror I felt was such that I had to accept that as a teenager I had had a very lucky escape. Reality.

What do you mean by: 'trigger warning for grooming'?

 

[CandleShade]

you do not deserve this
it is so so painful to dedicate your whole life to someone, and have them disregard and throw it back at you
but some people will do that unfortunately, it is simply in their nature
but please dont feel so bad about this, if your ex is terrible enough that he think it isnt enough that you are giving him your entire world, every single bit of time you have. then you will never be enough for him. and you shouldnt be. you wre not required to give your whole life to someone
i hope youll find love someday, hope your life goes well

 

[heisenberg]

It's hormones. It never stops, but you get used to it, that is to say you learn to differentiate between what your hormones are telling you is real, and what reality is telling you is real.

For example, when I was 16 in the days before the Tinterwebs, there was a girl sat in front of me at school, and for the next two years we'd sometimes aggressively flirt with each other during lessons, until I privately drove myself to distraction with the idea that we might at any moment run off together on the adventure of our young lives. But then I would have felt the same way about almost any girl who happened to be sat in front of me in class. Hormones. And really I was just an unruly precocious schoolboy with an overactive imagination, and she was just a snide spotty schoolgirl with no imagination, and she would never have absconded from school with or without me for even a single lunchtime. I never told her how I felt, because I knew it wasn't real. When we left school at the age of 17 or 18, I even signed her autograph book with: 'Not much space to write all of the wonderful things we've been through together... like nothing.' Reality. Nonetheless that night I got very drunk and privately contemplated suicide with the realization that childhood was all over and there would never be young love or a childhood sweetheart in my life. Hormones. I never saw the girl again, except for once some twenty or twenty-five years later, when I was sat on a bus and saw her randomly get on, preceded by her three or five noisy blonde children. She was now the size of a house and looked like she could have given birth to a five-year-old boy in a cowboy costume standing up, but it was still definitely her. She looked directly at me with glazed eyes, chewing gum with her mouth open, completely shameless, and the horror I felt was such that I had to accept that as a teenager I had had a very lucky escape. Reality.

What do you mean by: 'trigger warning for grooming'?

cause when everything started i was 16 and he was 24

 

[steppenwolf]

cause when everything started i was 16 and he was 24

I still don't understand. You said that you wanted this boy 'so bad' and that he was kind and loving towards you, but now you're saying that you were groomed i.e. sexually exploited by him? Would it still have been grooming if he was only 16 as well? And what do you mean by 'trigger warning'?

 

[heisenberg]

I still don't understand. You said that you wanted this boy 'so bad' and that he was kind and loving towards you, but now you're saying that you were groomed i.e. sexually exploited by him? Would it still have been grooming if he was only 16 as well? And what do you mean by 'trigger warning'?

i'm sorry don't understand what you're trying to say or get at ? i mentioned the age difference in my post originally. i stated how he lovebombed me and it created and unhealthy attachment. of course it wouldn't be grooming if we were the same age

edit; the trigger warning is for people who are sensitive to the topic of grooming

 

[steppenwolf]

i'm sorry don't understand what you're trying to say or get at ? i mentioned the age difference in my post originally. i stated how he lovebombed me and it created and unhealthy attachment. of course it wouldn't be grooming if we were the same age

edit; the trigger warning is for people who are sensitive to the topic of grooming

Oh right now I see what you mean by trigger warning.

Grooming is when someone sets out to exploit someone's vulnerability (age, mental health issues, disability &c.) in order to sexually abuse them. The age of the abuser is irrelevant, if the abuser is 16 or 66 it's still abuse. But you never met the guy in the flesh and he never tried to sexually abuse you, so it's not grooming. You pursued him online, he broke it off with you, and now you're upset. I tried to suggest that your fixation on this guy is hormonal, but you haven't picked up on it.

Trigger warning for ageists but it's really none of my business and my only qualification for an opinion is that I've been around hormones a lot longer than you. As a rule of thumb, you should avoid people who make you feel miserable.

 

[heisenberg]

Oh right now I see what you mean by trigger warning.

Grooming is when someone sets out to exploit someone's vulnerability (age, mental health issues, disability &c.) in order to sexually abuse them. The age of the abuser is irrelevant, if the abuser is 16 or 66 it's still abuse. But you never met the guy in the flesh and he never tried to sexually abuse you, so it's not grooming. You pursued him online, he broke it off with you, and now you're upset. I tried to suggest that your fixation on this guy is hormonal, but you haven't picked up on it.

Trigger warning for ageists but it's really none of my business and my only qualification for an opinion is that I've been around hormones a lot longer than you. As a rule of thumb, you should avoid people who make you feel miserable.

i left out the fact he pressured me into sending nudes and threatened to blackmail me/my family if i didn't. quite frankly you don't know me, or my life. i made this thread because this is trauma to me and i needed to vent. you don't get to invalidate my trauma because all i should've done is "is avoid people that make me upset." your opinion is based off assumption. your age is irrelevant to my life experience and what i've been through. i am done replying to this because you're starting to trigger me

 

[cme-dme]

Don't listen to that guy. Your trauma is perfectly valid and don't let anybody say it isn't. I relate to your post quite a lot. I also had a shitty relationship in 2020. It wasn't as bad but she did me a favor by cutting communication after we broke up 9 months later. I was too gullible to know any better at the time how she was hurting me. I hope you can distance yourself from him. If it makes you feel better, I also have long lasting issues from that relationship even after 4 years of never speaking to her. Many people will act like moving on from a relationship is easy but it isn't. If you open your heart up to somebody and they take advantage of that it will have a long lasting impact no matter what you do.